


Medicine, not miracles

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/F, Femdom, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, Light Masochism, Light Sadism, Love Bites, Oral Sex, Orgasm Denial, Pinching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8066572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: Usanagi manages the clinic all day, every day, but it’s Christine who helps her find release.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to the kink meme. Many thanks to placentalmammal for beta'ing. :)

“Whenever you’re ready,” Christine says, sitting on the edge of Usanagi’s bed with her elbows on her thighs, knees spread and light casting valleys of shadow across the scars lining her face. All that pain and history mapped in keloid— medicine’s power to maim.

Usanagi breathes deep, grounds herself in this small room, this small moment. The soles of her boots against the worn floorboards, her nails prickling her palms. Hands scoured with soap and water, alkaline-bitter in the crevices of her knuckles, blood and dark matter washed down the drain in a slow swirl. Medicine’s power to mend.

She unclenches her fists. Inhales. Antiseptic still faint and sour in her nostrils, an old-metal tang of blood. Phantom memories wreaking havoc on her senses. Exhales. Breath rasping on her lips, her weight sinking into her heels, her toes. Hands dangling heavy by her side, fingers loose.

Nods slow and quiet.

Christine smiles, scars twisting to new lines and angles. “Silence suits me fine.”

They both know the value of silence, the grief and goodbyes. Death and healing in an endless cycle; grave-earth and white coats, shuttered darkness and the cold pale light of the operating table.

Usanagi leads the clinic, sets the schedule and trains the new staff. A thousand and one decisions, all day, every day, relentless, necessary as her own heartbeat. Her control is a fine-stitched thing of dainty seams, pulling healing from the hurt, triumph from the pain.

(If she can, when she can: because she performs medicine, not miracles. The Followers always need more— more time, more people, more resources. She could open her veins, pour herself empty, and never fill the gap. Sometimes she can only triage, and hold enough of herself back to regrow.)

Now, cut away from her responsibilities (like gangrene from the limb, like a bandage from the wound) she sinks into quiet obedience. Lets Christine’s brisk orders wash over her, a hoarse music without cadence, a dead woman’s voice brought to life.

(Christine has talked, a little. Mentioned Old World scientists trapped in solipsistic cycles, mazes choked with red cloud and glowing holograms. The ghosts of the past still casting long shadows.)

Christine tells her to strip, so she strips. Folds her pants and sets them on the nightstand, sets her shirt on top. Unfastens her bra, not slow but unhurried. The peace of it laps against her skin, floods her limbs, sweeps her mind. Nude, shivering, brown nipples soft and peaking as Christine squeezes, tugs them into her mouth. An edge of tooth, a small sharp pain, but Usanagi does not cry out. There is no agony, no guilt. She is an instrument to Christine’s will, bends soft as Christine guides her to kneeling. Usanagi’s knees scrape rough against the floor, like knife on bone, and Christine winces, kisses apologies to her lips and drops a pillow.

Usanagi kneels on the cushion, joints sighing relief. Arteries throbbing soft music in her ears, the distant whirr of the generator humming through the air. She strips Christine slow and gentle, fabric rustling, metal clinking as she folds the clothing and sets it on the floor. Kisses her thighs. Lips soft with reverence, old promises flaking off her tongue.

Christine guides her with words, hands, presses Usanagi’s mouth to the folds of her body. It is not pain, but control: no mastery beyond her fist twined in Usanagi’s hair, her knees clasped over Usanagi’s shoulders. Scarred lips giving the commands in a voice from a dead station, echo of the empty nights spent in the clinic with only the radio for company.

(And that woman’s been dead for centuries, her song played its last round on the radio, but her voice lives on in Christine’s throat. One last echo, rippling through another lifetime.)

But the night is no longer empty, not with Christine in her bed, ordering, _stay, move, harder._ Usanagi bends two fingers, crooks, parts the coarse curls and slides into the wet heat of Christine’s body. A gentle thrust, curling to press against the inner walls. The barest hint of pressure as she swirls her tongue, laps broad whorls. Hard, harder, harder— 

Christine moans, grunts, sighs, body-symphony as she crashes into orgasm. Thighs clenched, sweat gleaming down her breasts and belly, face flushed. Gushes slick against Usanagi’s mouth, and Usanagi laps deep, arousal drenched across her lips. Nose buried against the swell of Christine’s belly, pubic hair soft against her cheek, trapping musk and scent.

After, Christine pulls Usanagi to her feet. Twists back on the bed, tugs, falls, their bodies fitting together with diamond angles and crossed limbs. Usanagi lands on her back and settles into the mattress, sinks herself deep.

Christine grips her wrist, tugs it overhead against the headboard. Lying on her side, knees stacked, propped on her elbow. Another terse command: “Hold.” Voice soft, but carries in the stillness— like footsteps down an empty hallway, or the beep of a monitor during night shift.

Usanagi grips the headboard, anchors herself with white knuckles and taut arms. Spine arching into the worn mattress, every vertebra in undulating climb as Christine covers her in open-mouthed kisses, teeth bared and marking flesh. Palms cupping her cheek, her chin, thumbs to the fragile pulse of her throat as Usanagi clenches the bed. Hands brittle with desire as Christine fans her fingers, wraps them about her neck in a loose collar.

(Never more than a shadow’s weight, never more than a breath, a whisper, soft trust exchanged with quiet words and Usanagi’s head tilted to expose the smooth line of her neck, the pale dip of her throat. Christine knows too much of steel chains and ticking collars to press with more than shadow.)

“This will hurt. But only if you want,” Christine says: a warning and a promise. Her breath carries desert heat, eyes bright as harsh skies.

Usanagi nods.

Christine’s a nova writ small, all hard hands and rough callus. She pinches bruises that blossom like desert flowers, her nails gouging skin and leaving red crescents in the pale flesh. Carves space in the hollows of their bodies, gnawing, clawing. Twists her hand into Usanagi’s hair, close to the scalp, pulls it taut. A lovely white shock of heat curling down Usanagi’s spine, an electric thrumming as all her synapses sing themselves alive. Usanagi likes it sharp and stinging, like cazador honey— and Christine delivers. Nips small and controlled, leaves small red marks as she travels over Usanagi’s shoulders and down her breasts. A scrape of tooth and she releases Usanagi’s head. Pinches one nipple, rolling it between her fingers and tugging, hard enough to lift it, stretch the skin. Then she pulls back her other hand, sets her middle finger against her thumb. All braced and quivering potential, like an arrow in the bow. 

Usanagi closes her eyes. Too easy to brace herself when she knows what’s coming.

So she hisses when Christine’s fingers flick hard and strong against her skin, spatters over her like hot oil in a pan. An edge of nail over the boundaries of her skin, marking the lines of self and non-self. Hard, hard, thrumming. A false relief when Christine licks the stinging spot, runs her tongue over the hard pebble of nipple and skin, blows soft to cool it. Then repeats.

“I could do this with something harder than my hands. A Wartenberg wheel, maybe,” Christine says, voice cold. Like ice cubes down Usanagi’s neck, a shivering welcome in this Mojave heat. 

Usanagi wants to arc towards her, beg, but instead focuses on gripping the headboard. Squeeze. Relax. Fingers curled around the headboard, her toes clenched tight. She’ll keep her silence: it’s as much a part of the game as Christine’s commands.

“Set cold spikes over your skin, flick the metal against you,” Christine murmurs, changing targets. Now on the other breast, her hands warm, burning, her voice cold and the pain gone dull and tingling. “See how hard it is to make you scream, to make you cry.” Flick, flick— ‘scream’ and ‘cry’ get their own punctuation, then it crosses over the threshold that Usanagi loves, that tipping-point where the pain slips like a needle in the vein, endorphins leaving her giddy, mind spinning. Everything wrapped in layers of softness, like her thoughts are crystal baubles cushioned in gauze. 

The pain is still there, but remote, ephemeral, like a shadow on water. More pinches, more hard flicks, then a loose and floating wonder as Christine leaves chained bites across her skin, linking her shoulders, her breasts. A thousand sweet pains like raindrops on dry earth, until at last Usanagi cries, “Enough, enough.”

Christine stops (like blood, like music, like the world spinning still) and kisses her slow and tender. Tastes like salt and flowers, a promise of sweetness under cracked earth.

They linger in this moment, soft and ephemeral. Hands pressed in comfort, soothing, Christine’s breath soft against her neck. Usanagi releases the bed, flexes her hands to ease the ache in her joints and tendons. Christine takes over, rubbing her thumb against Usanagi’s wrist and kneading into the meat of the palm.

“No more pain. Nothing that will hurt,” Christine says. A statement, confirmation, nothing meant to coax or persuade. The light gleams over her scars, a familiar and beloved path. “But I can make you come, if you want.”

Usanagi chuckles despite herself, laughter bubbling like a spring. “No games?”

Christine snorts, gouging her thumb a little too hard into the tendon of Usanagi’s wrist. Kisses apology when Usanagi winces. “Unless you want a game.”

“I like games.” Usanagi rolls back her head, groans. Body still limp, all the pain now a dull ache, little twinges like mementoes in flesh. “Nothing too active.”

“I can trade you pleasure for pain. Bring you to the edge, then stop.” Christine kisses Usanagi’s pulse, a dry butterfly-press of lips before releasing her hands.

Usanagi smiles, pillowing her head in her palms as she stretches back. “As long as I _do_ get to come.”

Christine nods, rolling onto her side so her foot hooks over Usanagi’s ankle. She licks her thumb and fingers, a long pull of her lips and sucking them in her mouth before releasing. Slides a finger against Usanagi’s folds, gathers slickness as she travels up, down, tugs the lips and chuckles when Usanagi shivers, bucking against her palm.

“Patience,” Christine murmurs, equal parts threat and promise. Knocks her knee down, pinning Usanagi’s thigh in a damp press of sweat and skin. She curls her fingers, slips two inside Usanagi in an easy rush of heat and wet, thumb over the clit. Nudges up the hood, a tricky bit of maneuvering but etched in muscle-memory— Usanagi’s own mark on Christine, as much as bruises or teeth.

Christine curves her fingers like beckoning, thumb rolling against the clit. The fingers give Usanagi something to clamp against, body rocking forward, back. Angling her hips, trying to drive herself down Christine’s fingers except Christine has her pinned, braced beneath her, body tilted to tamp her down. Easier to take the pleasure as it comes, to let it wash over her like water, like waves, a sweet contrast to the burn of Christine’s hard nails and teeth. Both are sensation, pleasure in different forms, but different as mint and ginger— distinct flavors, both to be equally savored.

Usanagi’s toes curl, hips lifting, mouth open in a wine-soft sigh—

And Christine stops, chuckling. “No. Not yet.”

Usanagi groans disappointment, crossing her wrists overhead. Knuckles scraping against the headboard.

Christine won’t let her come, but that’s not the same as stopping; makes it better, makes it worse, makes it lovely as Christine pulls her fingers out of Usanagi and rubs her palm against Usanagi’s pubic mound. The hair crinkles against Christine’s skin, minimal padding as Christine rubs, anchors herself against the bone and keeps rubbing in a maddening, indirect tug against Usanagi’s swollen clit. Not enough to push her over the edge, no, but keeps her from going down, makes her twitch and sigh before Christine obeys her own sense of timing and slips her fingers back inside. Rocks— forward, back. None of that lovely direct touch on the clit, not the thing that Usanagi truly craves, but Usanagi clenches down with her inner muscles, squeezes her thighs together until Christine, laughing, puts her thumb back on the clit.

More rolling, more sighing. Usanagi’s heart beats between her teeth as she rocks herself against Christine’s hand, toes curling into the sheets and gripping the headboard with white-knuckled hands. No longer in obedient stillness, but bracing, giving her an anchor as she arches into Christine’s hand, insisting _more, more, more_ with body rather than breath. Heat-slick thighs trembling with sweat and sex, lips quivering as she edges to that precipice once more, and _please, please, please_ , triplicate pleading with her eyes, with her mouth that shapes words without voice, with every fiber of her being longing, longing, longing—

Her orgasm breaks like glass, a sharp and clenching climax. Shards of aftershock still tingling crystalline on her skin, in every heave of breath and ragged sigh.

Christine slides her fingers out of Usanagi, spreads to show her the fluid webbed between them. Licks them, then wipes them against the sheet and curls herself over Usanagi. Kisses her ear, her cheek, her nose, travels kisses down to her mouth. Lips still wet, letting Usanagi taste herself off Christine’s tongue.

Usanagi caresses Christine’s shaved scalp, the stubble soft beneath her splayed fingers. Probes soft and gentle, traces the planes of the skull, the lumps and nodes of old surgeries. Their limbs twined like serpents about a staff, pain and pleasure like ribbons down Usanagi’s body. Only wisdom can divine the dose that heals, the dose that harms.


End file.
